family photo shoot

While we were visiting Washington a few weeks ago, my mom insisted that we have a family portrait session. We have never been very dedicated to family pictures, so I figured we could grant this wish for my mom. After all, other than my wedding last summer and snapshots from high school graduations, I don’t think we’ve done a real family portrait for close to two decades.  I’m pretty sure in our last family portrait, circa 1994, my sister and I were dressed like pioneer children and were sporting buck teeth. Those pre-pubescent, pre-orthodontics years are so awkward…

So my mom “bothered” me for about a month or two before our visit (use the word “nagged” if you must) to nail down a date for this long awaited family picture. We finally chose Thursday, July 21st. Everyone agreed to be home for it at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and my mom confirmed the time with her friend from church who would be taking the pictures. Everything was set.

Then, on the day of, my parents CANCELED the photographer.

Why you may ask? I honestly have no idea. I think my dad wanted it canceled because it was raining slightly and he didn’t want to traipse around our neighborhood and get all soggy. I’m not sure if my parents realize that they live in Seattle, so there was automatically a 95% chance of rain on ANY day of the year they scheduled an outdoor photo shoot. But for whatever reason my mom called me around noon on the set-in-stone Thursday that took months to nail down and said they told the photographer not to come.

We had already picked out our clothes. Nothing too matchy-matchy but we didn’t want to clash. My sister drove up from Seattle. My brother came home. Micah and I carved out time in our schedule and now there was going to be no picture.

Dumbest thing I had ever heard of. And as I was driving to my parents’ house about an hour before the allotted picture time, I saw the cloudy skies clearing just a bit. It wasn’t getting sunny out, but I could tell we would definitely have a rain-free hour or two for pictures.

So what did I do? I took them myself. I rigged a stool to hold the camera out on our back deck and used the self-timer. I bossed my family around {as usual?} and we actually got some pretty great pics. Then I edited them and loaded them onto my mom’s computer. Hello, picnik! If you’ve never used this program before you should…I have photoshop on my computer but always just find myself using picnik beacause it’s soooo easy and fun!

Family portraits = mission accomplished. My mom cannot bother me for another twenty years… 🙂

Here are some of my faves from our photo session…